We set off for Hot springs Cove on a silky smooth sea. Puffins, eagles and ducks flew by overhead as we admired the jagged mountains on all sides. Just after 11, our reflections were shattered by an obnoxious blast in the face. The forecasted South westerly was probably funneling up the valley we were heading for and spilling round the corner. From flat calm to a 20 knot headwind in 1 minute; they do say that things change quickly round here. Still, can’t complain, by 1pm we were making fried tortillas for lunch. I the afternoon we had a 30 minute stroll up the valley to some prominent puffs of steam. The water in each hot spring was boiling as it came to the surface, then it ran down the hillside in a hot stream filled with green and orange weed. Some previous visitors had made pools using rocks but all of them were too hot to bathe in. After some engineering works ourselves which involved removing skanky weed with a reindeer antler and shifting lots of rocks, we tried to make a
pool where the hot steam joined a large river, with mixed success. The result was a shadow pool where one second you’d be hit by a too hot jet off water causing you to leap up and the next second a cold flow would make you shiver. Things change quickly on the land too! But we had fun and we are a bit cleaner again.

Tomorrow we hope to make some progress towards Unalaska. The last forecast we got was for fresh SW winds. When I send this message I’ll get a new forecast from Karel so we’re hoping it’s still the same and we’ll get a helpful push.